Music hall songs

Music hall songs were sung in the music halls by a variety of artistes. Most of them were comic in nature. There are a very large number of music hall songs, and most of them have been forgotten. In London, between 1900 and 1910, a single publishing company, Francis, Day and Hunter, published between forty and fifty songs a month.

Examples

They number in their tens of thousands and include the following:

"After the Ball"
"The Army of Today's All Right"
"Any Old Iron" sung by Harry Champion.
"Boiled Beef and Carrots" sung by Harry Champion.
"The Boy I Love is up in the Gallery" sung by Nelly Power and Marie Lloyd.
"Burlington Bertie from Bow" sung by Ella Shields.
"Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me a Bow Wow" sung by Vesta Victoria.
"Daisy Bell" sung by Katie Lawrence.
"Don't Dilly Dally on the Way" sung by Marie Lloyd.
"Down at the Old Bull and Bush" sung by Florrie Forde.
"Goodbye, Dolly Gray" sung by George Lashwood.
"Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?" sung by Florrie Ford.
"Hello, Hello, Who's Your Lady Friend?" sung by Mark Sheridan.
"Hold Your Hand Out, Naughty Boy" sung by Florrie Ford.
"I'm Henery the Eighth, I Am" sung by Harry Champion.
"The Honeysuckle and the Bee"
"I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside" sung by various people including Mark Sheridan and Florrie Forde.
"I Live in Trafalgar Square" sung by Morny Cash.
"If It Wasn't For The 'Ouses In Between" sung by Gus Elen.
"If You Want to Know the Time, Ask a Policeman" sung by James Fawn.
"It's a Bit of a Ruin That Cromwell Knocked About a Bit" sung by Marie Lloyd.
"It's a Long Way to Tipperary" sung by Florrie Forde.
"Knees Up Mother Brown" a song, published in 1938, by which time it had already been known for some years.
"Let's All Go Down the Strand" sung by Charles R. Whittle.
"Maybe It's Because I'm a Londoner"
"Nellie Dean" sung by Gertie Gitana.
"Oh! It's a lovely war" sung by Ella Shields.
"Oh! Mr Porter" sung by Marie Lloyd.
"Proper Cup of Coffee"
"She Was A Sweet Little Dicky Bird"
"Ship Ahoy! (All the Nice Girls Love a Sailor)", performed by Hetty King
"Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay" sung by Lottie Collins.
"The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo" sung by Charles Coborn.
"To Be There" sung by Sam Torr.
"Waiting At The Church" sung by Vesta Victoria.
"We're Going to Hang out the Washing on the Siegfried Line" by Jimmy Kennedy was first published in 1939
"When Father Papered the Parlour" sung by Billy Williams.
"Where Did You Get That Hat?" sung by J.C Heffron.
"Your Baby Has Gone Down The Plughole", later covered by Cream

Bawdy examples

Many of the following burlesque songs, which were written before the First World War, continue to be sung today in certain British Rugby Football clubs.

"Christmas Day In The Cookhouse"
"Dinah, Dinah Show Us Your Leg"
"Good Ship Venus"
"It's Hard to Say I Love You"
"Ivan Skavinsky Skavar"
"My Father's a Lavatory Cleaner"
"Old Dan Tucker"
"Parlez Vous"
"The Great Big Wheel" a.k.a. the "Engineer's Song"
"The Moon Shines Bright on Charlie Chaplin"
"The Gentleman Soldier"